Colombia’s Pro-Trump Presidential Candidate Pulls Off Shock Election Result

Colombia’s pro-Donald Trump candidate Abelardo de la Espriella won the first round of the country’s presidential election on Sunday and will now face left-leaning senator Iván Cepeda in a runoff later this month.

De la Espriella, a political outsider, won nearly 44 percent of the vote while Cepeda clinched just under 41 percent, according to Colombian media.

Because neither reached 50 percent, the runoff election will be held on June 21.

Cepeda is backed by incumbent leftist Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who has regularly sparred with Trump on social media, including over the U.S. administration’s controversial strike campaign on alleged drug boats that has killed more than 200 people.

But de la Espriella, a lawyer who has never held office in the South American country, has aligned himself with other regional right-wing leaders like Argentina’s Javier Milei and Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele and portrayed himself as a supporter of Trump.

He has also pledged closer cooperation with the U.S. and to crack down on organized crime.

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Polls ahead of the vote had recorded a surge of support for de la Espriella but most had still put Cepeda in the lead. De la Espriella—who refers to himself as El Tigre, or The Tiger—said in a video posted to social media on Sunday that “more than 10 million Colombians” had placed their trust in him and “joined the pack,” pledging to “change the history of Colombia forever” in the runoff election.

Petro, meanwhile, said he did not accept the preliminary results and claimed the count included 800,000 additional people. He did not provide evidence to support this claim.

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